Bor Slana/Reuters
A heroin "epidemic" is gripping the US, where cheap supply has helped push the number of users to a 20-year high, increasing drug-related deaths, the UN said on Thursday.
According to the UN's World Drug Report 2016, the number of heroin users in the US reached about a million in 2014, almost three times as many as in 2003. Heroin-related deaths there have increased five-fold since 2000.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — The U.S. ambassador to Brazil met with his Brazilian counterpart Monday following new revelations that the National Security Agency’s spy program directly targeted the South American nation’s leader.
Ambassador Thomas Shannon arrived and left Brazil’s Foreign Ministry without speaking to reporters. There was no comment from officials at Brazil’s Foreign Ministry either.

Ihsan Ghaidan, a policeman in one of Iraq's most volatile provinces, admits he stands little chance of promotion and notes his performance is increasingly under the microscope, for one simple reason -- he is overweight, and Iraq's security leaders are not happy.

By Emerging Money:
By Steven Orlowski
Despite all its challenges, including the media focus on drug cartels and border issues with the United States, Mexico has been on the rise. China, for many years a manufacturing and exporting powerhouse, has ceded some of its business to Mexico.

Late last night news broke that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had proposed a resolution for US involvement in Syria which among other things, would limit Obama's Syrian military strike - whose "clinical" purpose and intentions are still very much unclear - to 90 days. As reported earlier, Republican war hawk John McCain said he would not support the resolution, arguably because he hopes to see a wider, more spread out campaign, one which would certainly infuriate Russia and China. Or a simpler reason: the usual bipartisan breakdown in Congress strikes again.